Vehicle seats often include a variety of adjustment mechanisms that allow the position of the entire seat to be adjusted and also to allow the positions of the constituent portions of the seat to be adjusted with respect to one another. These adjustments not only allow for a wide variety of driver body types to be comfortably accommodated by the vehicle seat but also can be utilized to improve ingress and egress with respect to the vehicle, as well as to move or stow the seat to provide additional cargo room.
For example, some rear seats in vehicles such as SUVs, crossovers, and minivans fold in half, stow into the floor, and/or pivot about a floor attachment point in order to increase cargo carrying capability. Such cargo carrying configurations, however, typically provide little space between the adjusted seats and other adjacent seats or trim surfaces within the vehicle in order to maximize cargo space. This makes it difficult to make geometric changes to the design of the vehicle. In particular, if a vehicle designer wishes to increase the size of a seating surface to increase comfort or support, this must be done without disturbing or eliminating the adjustment functionality of the seat.
Among the various portions of a vehicle seat, the headrest of the seat presents particular design challenges. In particular, the position and geometry of a typical headrest is such that folding a seat into a cargo carrying configuration may result in interference between the headrest and an adjacent seat. For this reason, headrests often move or pivot such that they do not interfere with adjacent seats or surfaces when the seat is in a cargo carrying configuration. Such headrest structures, however, have a tendency to be complicated, expensive, and formed from multiple parts that lack aesthetic appeal.
In light of the foregoing, there remains a need for improvement in headrest structures having reduced cost and complexity while also improving aesthetics.